The biggest cop out

Here are the simple facts of the matter:

a. Sinclair Davidson will not ban people who comment at his blog who have been busy routinely vilifying Muslims collectively for many years.

b.  If you want to see some examples I have complained about before, use the site search bar at the side of this blog and search "Muslim Catallaxy". 

c.  The reason for his refusal to ban such comments or people is unknown.  I presume he thinks that banning them will look "un-libertarian".   This is kind of ironic, given that most of his followers, if threads are anything to go by, are actually reactionary Right wing  Conservatives who think libertarianism is a fatally flawed philosophy.   (Oh, they do like the idea that they can make rarely moderated and anonymous comments that are blatantly racist, sexist, misogynistic or just downright nutty.  That's the one aspect of libertarianism they're signed up for.  That and guns, lovely guns.)

d.  It's not as if he can't and doesn't ban people when it suits him - he has banned people in the past just for insulting him personally.  He has basically banned people for being too annoying to other commentators.

e. To state the obvious:  given the nature of the internet, there is nothing about being aggressively for free speech  that means you must personally host a site which routinely allows views you personally find "ugly"to repeatedly appear.

f.  It's no justification that he will, sometimes, personally post or comment that he thinks the anti-Muslim views on his site are going too far.

h.  He in fact maintains a forum in which the extremist views on Muslims are "normalised" by their constant repetition and frequent lack of challenge, despite them often representing extremism of the kind that appears in manifestos like that of the Christchurch killer.    



That he will not ban them shows he will take no responsibility for facilitating the promotion of those views.    He should never appear on media without being attacked for why he facilitates them.

To shrug his shoulders and say he is "not his brother's keeper", as he did in a recent comment here,  is a pathetic cop out.   


Update:  I meant to link to monty's post in 2014: Alan Moran sacked from IPA over anti-Islam tweets, in which I contributed comments puzzling over what justification a person of moderate views on Islam (like Davidson) can have for continuing to host a site like Catallaxy with threads full of  rabid anti Islamic views the IPA won't tolerate on its staff.